Blog Break

I'm going on a temporary hiatus for a couple of weeks.  Blogging may be light to non existent.  Congratulations to all of the University of Utah graduates, especially those from atmospheric sciences.  

A Quiet April So Far

In a post last week I commented that it had been a dry April so far.  We got a bit of rain with the trough I discussed in that post but for the most part this April has not only been dry but quiet.  April is sometimes a month with strong cold fronts and big temperature swings.  My view is that this one has been rather ho-hum without a lot of fireworks. Temperature swings have been modest and rainfall somewhat scant.

Rainfall through yesterday for the month at the Salt Lake City International Airport was only 0.44 inches.  Data from the National Weather Service shows that much of Utah is below average for precipitation over the past 30 days.

A weak system moving through will bring some clouds and a chance of showers to northern Utah over the through Thursday, but accumulations look to be unimpressive.  There is a deeper trough approaching for Sunday and Monday.  Keep your fingers crossed it delivers some rain as we could use it.  

More Proposed NOAA Budget Cuts

The Trump Administration 2026 budget passback plan would be catastrophically bad for weather prediction in the United States.  

Below is a transcript of the letter that I sent to Utah Senator John Curtis and Representative Blake Moore concerning these potential cuts.  If you agree (or even if you disagree and want to share an alternative opinion), please consider writing your legislative leaders.   

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I am a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Utah who has worked for 30 years to improve weather prediction in Utah.  I lead research to improve the understanding and prediction of winter storms in Utah’s mountains and develop methods to improve snowfall forecasting across the continental United States using artificial intelligence. The forecast techniques my group has developed are used by the National Weather Service and private companies.  I am also proud to have served as the graduate advisor for several Air Force officers who are contributing to weather support for our Nation’s defense.  I write today as a private citizen.  The views expressed in this letter are mine and independent from the University of Utah.  

The Trump Administration’s 2026 budget passback plan would be catastrophic for the future of weather prediction in the United States, reducing our ability to anticipate, prepare, and respond to high-impact weather including winter storm, severe thunderstorm, and wildfire hazards that affect Utah.  It would gut the NOAA Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Office, 10 NOAA Research Laboratories, and 16 Cooperative Institutes, essentially eliminating nearly all of the critical research done by NOAA.  

We are already seeing the impacts of the Trump Administration on the National Weather Service and the broader US Weather Enterprise.  National Weather Service offices, due to staffing cutbacks, are reducing overnight staffing at forecast offices, decreasing the frequency of weather discussions for fire weather and spot forecasts, lowering the frequency of weather discussions for aviation forecasts, and making decisions for critical some watch/warning/advisory products only on day shifts (see, for example, https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25899644-changes-coming-to-nws-sacramento-products-services/). 

The 2026 budget passback plan, however, would not only further degrade National Weather Service forecasts and decision support services during critical high-impact weather events, but halt ongoing research to advance satellite, radar, and other observing systems; create next generation computer forecast systems; and expand the use of artificial intelligence for weather watches and warnings.  These cuts will have significant impacts on future weather prediction in Utah, which given our climate and complex terrain is highly variable and stands to benefit greatly from advances in the areas above.  Let me give three examples: 

• Winter storm forecasting.  Utah’s complicated geography, topography, and water features such as the Great Salt Lake produce extremely localized snowstorms that are not well forecast by current National Weather Service forecast modeling systems.  In other countries with complex terrain, such as the Alpine nations of Switzerland, France, and Austria, computer models are being run at much higher resolution to account for terrain effects. There is tremendous potential for improved forecasts for Utah if NOAA can continue its computer model development efforts.

• Coupled atmosphere-fire modeling.  Currently, there is no operational capability to simulate and forecast the interactions between wildfires, vegetation, and the atmosphere that cause wildfire blowups and severe wildfire behavior.  Ongoing research is building modeling systems capable of doing this and advancing our ability to better anticipate wildfire spread in the future.

• Seasonal water-resource prediction.  Long-lead-time forecasts of temperature, precipitation, and mountain snowpack are vital for anticipating the spring runoff.  Future advances in our understanding and prediction of year-to-year variations in snowfall and spring snowmelt dynamics will enable our water managers and agricultural communities to make better decisions.

Recently, the American Meteorological Society and National Weather Association, which represent all of these sectors, released a statement summarizing the implications of these cuts (https://blog.ametsoc.org/tag/ams-statement/).  It summarizes well the importance of NOAA for the Nation: 

“Without NOAA research, National Weather Service (NWS) weather models and products will stagnate, observational data collection will be reduced, public outreach will decrease, undergraduate and graduate student support will drop, and NOAA funding for universities will plummet. In effect, the scientific backbone and workforce needed to keep weather forecasts, alerts, and warnings accurate and effective will be drastically undercut, with unknown — yet almost certainly disastrous — consequences for public safety and economic health.”

I ask that you evaluate the proposed cuts, their impacts on the protection of lives and property in the State of Utah, and the potential benefits that will be lost if these cuts are enacted.  NOAA research is an investment that greatly benefits Utah and the Nation.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jim Steenburgh

Why Small Majors Are Important at a University

Whether it be the federal government, the state government, or the University of Utah, there is a lot of talk these days about "efficiency."  Google AI defines efficiency as "how well resources are used to produce desired outputs, often measured by the ratio of outputs to inputs."  

One of the bills passed this last state legislative session, HB 265: Higher Education Strategic Reinvestment, requires a reallocation of $20 million to the University of Utah's base budget to move support from inefficient operations and programs to efficient ones.  Specifically, the U is to "develop a strategic reinvestment plan that:

(i) identifies programs, courses, degrees, departments, colleges, or other divisions of the institution, operational efficiencies, and other components of the institution's instruction and administrative functions, including dean positions and other administration positions, that merit further investment;

(ii) identifies programs, courses, degrees, departments, colleges or other divisions of the institution, operational inefficiencies, and other components of the institution's instruction and administrative functions, including dean positions and other administration positions, that the institution will reduce or eliminate to shift resources, in an amount at least equal to the amount of reinvestment funds dedicated to the institution."

The U must submit of a draft of their plan to the Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) in May.  

Recently, the University of Utah was told by leaders of USHE to look at cutting majors with fewer than 40 graduates per year.  The Salt Lake Tribune article in that link stated that U Provost Mitzy Montoya "bristled at the number, which she said feels arbitrary."  I'd like to take a deeper diver here into some of the reasons why the number of graduates in a major can be a poor metric to use in isolation and why small majors are important to a University. 

Some of these are noted in the article, including the fact that a program may be smaller but growing, but there are others.

In some cases, a department or departments may offer multiple majors.  There may be small enrollment in one of those majors, but the costs of offering may be relatively low since most of the classes needed for it are offered anyway.  This is the case for the recently developed Earth and Environmental Science major, which is not housed in a department but instead spans multiple departments and largely builds on the existing curriculum in Atmospheric Sciences, Geology and Geophysics, and Biology.  This is also a new major and growing fast (I suspect it is now well over 40 majors). 

In other cases, the major may be small, but vital to society.  Mining Engineering is such an example. This is a specialized engineering discipline that is important to the State of Utah.  The department is small, but graduates have high salaries and a high employment rate.  And they are needed.  

A department might also have a small number of majors, but teach high-demand classes.  In my area, Atmospheric Sciences, we graduate a relatively small number of students each year, but also offer some of the largest enrolled physical sciences classes on campus.  I have more than 500 students in my class this semester.  It's online and "very efficient," although students also tell me they love it and learn a lot!  We also offer higher-level classes in climate, environmental programing, environmental statistics, and other areas that are required or needed by students in other majors.  It takes a village and specialty disciplines are often essential for student education.  

Then there are small departments on campus that are very innovative and successful in research and innovation.  This includes my department, but also departments like Metallurgical Engineering and Pharmacology/Toxicology.  These departments have the highest ratios of research funding per faculty member on campus, with external funding that greatly exceeds their state budgets.  

I've focused above on science and engineering, which reflects my experience on campus, but there are also strong arguments for keeping smaller departments in the humanities and other areas.  

Increasing efficiency by reducing waste is important.  However, it should not be evaluated based solely on the number of graduates.  The real goal for a University and its various units isn't efficiency but value, for its students and society, with value here being broadly defined to include non-monetary benefits and impacts.  Just read the University of Utah's mission statement:

"The University of Utah drives unsurpassed societal impact by preparing students from diverse backgrounds to be leaders and global citizens who strengthen our society and democracy; generating and sharing new knowledge, discoveries and innovations that supercharge our economy and improve lives locally, nationally and globally; and engaging local, national and global communities to promote education, health and quality of life."

Those intangibles matter and we need to be cautious about using metrics that don't adequately measure them.  

Joint AMS/NWS Statement on NOAA Research Cuts

"The scientific backbone and workforce needed to keep weather forecasts, alerts, and warnings accurate and effective will be drastically undercut, with unknown — yet almost certainly disastrous — consequences for public safety and economic health."

See the full statement: https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/about-ams/ams-statements/statements-of-the-ams-in-force/stand-up-for-noaa-research-the-time-to-act-is-now/ 

Where Are the April Showers?

It's been a dry start to April with only 0.16" of precipitation at the Salt Lake City International Airport, 0.15" of which fell on April 1st.  We won't see precipitation today, so that will be the tally through the half-way point of April, which will tie it for the 9th driest first half of April on record.  If you are wondering, there are five Aprils in which we had no measurable precipitation in the first half of the month, most recently in 1992.  

The April Fools storm was a bigger producer in the Avenues Foothills than the airport, but my full-sun gardens are now starting to dry out.  We could use some April showers soon.  

The likelihood of valley precipitation will finally be on the increase late Wednesday into Thursday as an upper-level trough digs into Utah from the Pacific Northwest.  The GFS shows the trough over central Idaho at 1200 UTC 17 April (6 AM Thursday) with some showers across northern Utah with the accompanying cold front. 

Right now this doesn't look like a supersoaker, except if maybe you are lucky enough to be one blessed with a more intense shower or thunderstorm, but it will cool things down and give us some showers.  We'll call it beneficial rains for the valley (maybe even mixed with some flakes for the benches on Thursday and Friday) and a return of mountain snow.  

Given the unsettled nature of this spring pattern, the spread for water equivalent and snowfall in the Utah Snow Ensemble for Alta is enormous and about as big as I've seen all winter.  

Odds are probably best on Thursday.  After that, it will probably come in fits and starts if it keeps coming.  The dendrites will have a real battle with daytime heating.  Good skiing will probably require high end accumulations and getting on it right away.